


You Keep Your Hands to Yourself

by floralb0t



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, NOT ROMANCE JUST SIBLINGS, No Warnings but there are vague mentions of self harm / suicide, Reader Is Chara, but it's intended as a retelling via chara, call it angst w a happy ending ig?, it's my 2020 quarantine i can write what i want, so it's not quite reader is chara? lmao sorry it's confusing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23571565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floralb0t/pseuds/floralb0t
Summary: You're a damaged kid, just a kid, just a small little brat. And then you're the older sibling, trying to unlearn some rules which broke your heart and your soul. And then you're a ghost in the back of a smaller, littler kid's mind.Your headache worsens.You keep your hands to yourself.
Relationships: Chara & Asriel Dreemurr, Chara & Frisk (Undertale)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	You Keep Your Hands to Yourself

Keep your hands to yourself, that's the mantra you repeat as you walk. It’s dark here. It’s always dark here. Keep your hands to yourself. You don’t know what is okay to touch yet and what isn’t. 

These people aren’t human. That’s not surprising. There’s so many monsters in this world. They’re not monsters though, they are something else. There’s magic down here and it’s in their souls. What the fuck is that supposed to mean? You wouldn’t know if you didn’t see one of them healing your broken leg like it was nothing more strenuous than kneading bread. 

Keep your hands to yourself, you repeat it again and again like you need it more than breathing while she hugs you. If you don’t reach out she won’t realize how twisted the soul in your fingers is. If you don’t reach out she won’t see the cracks in your heart. Keep your hands to yourself. 

The darkness in this place never fades. Logically, it’s always dark. Smiles though, pure and full of hope, they shine brighter than the sun and it makes this place bright. You are smiling more than ever before. You are _hope._ That’s what they say, while they light up this dark place like the sun is finally touching it. It’s infectious, like a smiling plague.

Keep your hands to yourself, even as the boy who helped you out of the hole, literal, figurative, spiritual, grabs at yours to lead you to his favourite places. It’s not worth getting attached. He’ll be able to see the darkness soon enough. That’s his magic, he can see into your heart. He can see all those things that are broken. Keep your hands to yourself. 

“Hey, come on!” 

“Ree, why do you try so hard?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

Isn’t that the question. 

You stand in front of a mirror. It’s not really you, it’s another kid, with the same haircut and the same taste in clothes and the same broken bone that the same woman fixed with her hands that have made the same recipe for bread more times than you can count. You keep your hands to yourself. They do not. 

Is it hard sharing a body?

Is it harder being the ghost? 

You can see your reflection in the mirror, just over the kid’s shoulder. 

You keep your hands to yourself. They touch everything. What a mess, you mutter as you shake your head.

They stick their tongue out and ask “Why shouldn’t I?”

You keep your hands to yourself and you still died and now you are here haunting this little kid while they live the life you should have had and you keep your hands to yourself.

His magic is beautiful, the first time you see it in action. You haven’t died yet or maybe you have and this is the heaven you’re removed from later. It’s not like his mother’s, it flows green like sprawling vines out from his hands, where her’s was more like a flame. You watch those vines as they glow, bright like the sun and the first thing he does with them is hold your hand. You are their _hope_ he says as he does it. 

He’s your brother now. Even if you keep your hands to yourself you have to guide him. It’s your duty. You’re older and more knowledgeable about the world outside. You’ve seen the real physical sun before. He’s only seen smiles which light up rooms and hearths so warm they cradle bones. It’s not the same. You’re going to protect him if it’s the last thing you do. He’s got magic, you’ve got willpower. 

You get attached. You keep your hands to yourself around everyone but him.

“You never did tell me why you tried so hard,” you ask as he walks you through the rain to the best view in the whole world.

He smiles and shrugs before reaching back for your hand. “It ruins the mystery if I tell you now.”

“Ree, c’mon. That’s dumb,” you whine. 

His grip tightens for a moment and you watch him try to catch himself before falling. The clasped hands between you pull you forward and then you’ve got a face full of mud too. Why did you agree to come out here while it was raining again anyways?

“Oooaaaaaaah,” Ree moans as he lets go of your hand to push himself up. “That huuuuuuurrrrrrt”

“Of course it did, Doofus.” You do your best to keep the wince and the scorn out of your voice. You’re all wet, like all over now, but your palm was skinned and you’re going to need a bath tonight for sure. The mud on your shoes is more slippery as you stand up than it was when you went down.

He smiles at you all the same though, bashful but happy. When is he not happy? How are _you_ their hope and not him? “Give me your hand, Goofus.”

You wipe your palm off on a dry section of your pants and pray that doesn’t embed any dirt further in before putting it in his open grasp. Green light, brighter than the sun, shines on both of your faces.

That little kid wanders the old roads you used to play on. “Play” is so childish, but you never had a childhood before here. Does it matter any more? Here is where you unlearned the rules which broke your heart before it even had a chance to know what being whole meant. You still keep your hands to yourself though. Old habits die hard. 

The gardens are a good place to practice letting your fingers touch more things. Your brother, beloved little brother, grins at you. He _beams_. You’ve never felt this warm, this loved. You watch as he runs inside to find his parents, your new parents, better parents, these people who opened their homes and their hearts to you. He says as much as he throws himself through the doorway back inside but some bitter fear rears its head. You didn’t keep your hands to yourself. This is when it comes back to bite you, as it always does, this is when you’re thrown out, right?

But then it’s not. You hear happy laughter, you see that green light in your mind before your eyes and there they are. Your _family._

After a minute, _she_ … Mom comes out beaming and laughing. She smiles towards you and you can feel all of the hurt inside your heart heal a little bit further. She’s always been good at fixing what you broke. And then, just behind her, he, _Dad_ , comes out too. He’s frowning a little but as soon as he sees you he brightens just the same. And then behind them both, there's your brother. Grinning like he's the sun, and you just gave him the moon.

Finally, you have a home.

They walk through the darkest parts of your memory. You’ve never met most of the people they have, and they go out of their way to talk to _everyone_. It’s cute. It’s friendly. It makes your head hurt. You’re the ghost, are you able to get a headache? 

They pass the piano, they pass the statue. You beg. And plead. And cry. Keep your hands to yourself. Please. Keep your hands to yourself. 

And for once, they do, they do. Only for you to slip in, your hold on their limbs resting like a filter just over their own, and it’s _you_ who reaches out to touch the relics of your past.

You have a headache. You wish you weren't trapped in their head. You like this kid, as much as you’ve liked anyone. Except him. You’re too scared to have a sibling again. But they’re the closest you’re ever going to get, you think. You have a headache. 

You should really learn to keep your hands to yourself. 

You should keep to the back, the far reaches, the dark spots of their mind. Keep the headache as far away from them as possible.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

“It's okay,” they respond.

It’s not.

You should keep your hands to yourself.

You tell him that it’s for the best. It was your mistake that did this; it was your fault. He watches, that green light, that bright, sunshine smile, fading just the slightest bit and you hope you aren’t breaking his heart like your old parents broke yours.

“It’s for the best, Ree.”

“But what if I can’t do it?”

“I’ll be there with you, to make sure you can.”

He starts crying. You reach out. You can keep your hands to yourself around everyone but him. “Come _here,_ Doofus. Let me hug you.”

He climbs up onto the bed, the one his, your, both of yours, the one Dad built with his own to hands and his magic and his love. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, small, tiny, your baby brother. “I’m sorry,”

“Don’t be sorry, Ree. We’re doing what needs to be done.” You try to reassure him. It doesn’t work and he’s crying and you watch that green sunshine which pours, floods out from his soul, dim. There’s a dam in the river of his joy. And you, you cursed blackened little soul, you put it there.

He’s struggling to quell his tears and you have to keep your hands on his back to keep him upright, but by all the gods of above and below, what you wouldn’t fucking give to keep your hands to yourself.

“Don’t be sorry, Ree,” you whisper into the fur on his neck and head and ears. “If anyone should apologize, it’s me. I’m sorry for putting you through this.”

“We could … could we stop?” He asks, a bubble of hope and tears and wet and magic made to heal popping on your shoulder as he buries his head there.

You squeeze him a little tighter. If only you had kept your hands to yourself.

You watch over their shoulder, from inside their head, from the space behind their thoughts where the shards of your soul take up residence. This house seems so much different now. The whole place has felt so different.

Is it the filter of being stuck in someone else’s head? Or have that many years passed already? When did the place outside the labs get this hot? When did the new city become so dead, so empty? 

They do the puzzles, they walk the staircase, they face down Dad. Your headache grows. 

There’s nothing to do other than attack. Dad’s removed all other options. You look into his eyes, when they’re looking elsewhere. He’s weeping, he’s so lost, he’s … 

He’s ….

Your headache worsens.

It’s so hard to hide the hurt in your soul while you’re also trying to wrest control over the body from him. It’s your fault that this happened. This is all your fault. 

You feel another stone connect with the back of your, his, both of your, the head and you pray you’ve got enough control that he didn’t feel it. You didn’t know it at the time, but this is practice for being a ghost, a trespasser, a ride-along, the headache in the back, the weeping angel in this body’s thoughts. You shift a hand around your own fucking body’s head, making sure not to drop it because his mom, not really your mom anymore, you’re about to get her perfect, beautiful, fucking sunshine of a son get killed. Anyways, you should really return to his mom. She'd like to have both your bodies, not just his. She's sentimental like that.

A rock like a blade connects with the arm and you nearly drop your body. 

In the back of the space you both inhabit, your brother is _weeping_ , he’s sobbing about the fact you’re dead, and you won’t be getting anything for it, and how is he supposed to be without you?

How the fuck do you respond to that? Hm? How! How do you listen to your brother grieve your death which _you_ caused and you won’t even be around to take the blame for?

You … I really should have kept my hands … to myself.

Frisk goes and spends more time with two of their friends, at … Flowey’s behest. You … you’re not really present right now. The headache is too bad. It hurts in a way you know is reverberating through the shard of your soul which is attached to Frisk’s. You open your eyes, a separate action behind Frisk’s, just once, to see him. 

He’s different. He’s so different.

You really did a number on him, right?

Fuck, how bad did you screw up his life? Some older sibling. Some life guidance. Some … some …. Fuck. 

Your headache worsens. 

Frisk pulls aside, for a moment, and they drape an emotion over you like a blanket, like a hug, but there are no strings attached, no hands trying to hold you, just comfort. 

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, knowing they can feel your pain.

“I know,” they whisper back. You pull that blanket of comfort, of support tighter. “Keep your head up. And we’ll deal with it once we’re out again.”

You nod. What else can you do?

You’ve got willpower, but so does Frisk. And they are not the type to back down. You keep your hands to yourself. And Frisk does too. But they make sure to stand beside you.

You wait in that fucking grave because its everything you deserve and more. Sometimes you wish mom would stop coming around. Sometimes you think you’re hanging on by a thread until she’s standing nearby, watching the clouds through your personal pinprick of light.

And sometimes he shows up. Those days are probably the worst. 

They walk out into the room where Dad had been. He’s there again. Your head, hidden in the back of their head, it hurts less. And then _he_ shows up. And everything goes to shit.

You're a damaged kid, just a kid, just a small little brat. 

Frisk saved them all, all their friends, and the rest of your family.

And then you're the older sibling, trying to unlearn some rules which broke your heart and your soul. 

But there’s one person left to save, and it’s up to you.

And then you're a ghost in the back of a smaller, littler kid's mind. 

“Ree?” You ask, using Frisk’s mouth, using their body. He’ll know the difference though. Your headache lessens. “Are you there? I … I’m sorry.”

He’s there, you know, I know, we know. We all know.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Asriel, I’m so sorry.” It’s coming out of you like waves “Azzy, Ree, I-I, I’m so fucking sorry.”

He’s there and you can see him now, standing at the edges of this space, with his hands tucked up against himself. “Chara?”

“Yeah, Goofus, it’s me.” You take a step toward him.

He laughs, a wet, sad little thing that pops like a bubble. “You’re wrong. _You’re_ Goofus, I’m Doofus.”

He’s too tall, and he’s got the funky markings of a dark magician like in the stories you both read when you were both alive. “Sure, Ree,” you say, as softly as you can, as you step further towards him. “I’ll be Goofus. Just this once.”

“Are you sure?” He smiles. There’s a little of that old, pure, sweet green smile breaking through.

You take one last step toward him and then he’s in front of you. Right there. He’s so fucking tall. How’d he get so tall dammit? You were always the taller one.

“Super sure.”

You don’t keep your hands to yourself.

You were once a broken little kid, and then you were an older sibling, and then you were just a ghost. Now you’re dead, you’ll never not be dead. You’re trying to heal though, as silly as it sounds.

You’re healing. 

You haven’t had a headache in weeks.

And you’re learning, again, not to keep your hands so fully to yourself.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't edit this and that's okay, it's just a rush of emotions, trying to get the character study down. 
> 
> it's Quarantine babey!! if you're reading this in the far off future, I've been stuck in my house for nearly a month now and I need to write but don't feel comfortable posting my other projects yet.
> 
> Anyways, thank you so much for reading. I'd love to hear your thoughts/Questions on this here or at my tumblr. Kiss!!!
> 
> [Tumblr](https://floralb0t.tumblr.com/?)


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